


gentleman's homecoming

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Infidelity, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Grant thinks that Jonathan is a creature of England, not of war. Or at least, he should be.





	gentleman's homecoming

Many in the army have a superstitious love of Merlin. They see his magic as more than it is, they think that not only can it do the impossible but that it is a good luck charm, that when he is on their side, fortune will favor them. This is blatantly untrue. Grant remembers the woods, how Merlin barely saved all their lives (did not even save all of them). He knows too that many have died since Merlin arrived, even if Merlin has been very useful.

Nevertheless he has an unreasonable love of Merlin too. There is a part of him that he cannot quite shake that thinks of Merlin as England. It’s because Merlin is the only damn man around who doesn’t wear a uniform, partly. It’s because he arrived late and was an utter mess and still freaks out at the sight of a body. It’s because he’s not a soldier and yet he still works with them, still loves them. He is, to Grant, the idea of home. The idea of an English gentleman. Maybe that’s why the army loves him too. Maybe that’s his real magic.

Not that Merlin is really that different from any soldier. He sits by the fire with the rest, not even always joining Wellington’s tent, poring over a letter from his wife (Arabella, Grant knows the name because he’s mentioned it a thousand times by now), and looking quite sad and tired.

“Any news?” Grant asks.

“Just Norrell causing trouble again,” Merlin says. He sighs and folds the paper up. “She’s still trying to buy me books, and they still keep disappearing. So of course he’s been taking them. You can’t expect that to change though.”

Grant nods. It’s amusing, how in Merlin’s world books have such an importance. Though they certainly are important to his magic. Grant would like to meet this Norrell and have a few words with him. He’s heard Norrell spoken of as the first English magician but Merlin’s the one who’s actually fighting here, so he’s the real English magician to Grant. He deserves his books. This Norrell must be very petty.

But Merlin is not unduly troubled by the news. He laughs a little. “She’s very upset about it.”

“Is she?”

“I’ll have to write to her and tell her not to mind so much. It’s just books.” He rubs his eyes tiredly. “I would have cared before, but when we’re here…how could I care about books? That world seems so…” He shakes his head.

“But you’ll want the books when you get back,” Grant says.

“Doubtless.” Merlin sighs. “Very well, I’ll write to her and tell her to keep trying. We all have our separate wars.” He smiles a little.

Something Grant will not tell Merlin is that he sees Merlin as Merlin sees Arabella. Full of concerns that are important in one sense and naïve in another. A denizen of another world. Even though Merlin fights with them, even though he is well weathered by now, Grant can’t forget, with that coat he always wears and the slight gentlemanly flair of his posture, that he’s not really a soldier. He belongs to a world of books and papers and political concerns, not a battlefield. It’s lucky that he’s here, but really he shouldn’t be.

He thinks the same thing when they are in bed together. Merlin is not meant to be his. Grant has only ever slept with other soldiers before, and Merlin is different—even the small exclamations he makes during the act are somehow different. He kisses Merlin on the temple a bit too tenderly and thinks about how he has stolen this moment from someone else (Arabella, Arabella, Arabella, though Merlin will certainly never bring up the name it still resounds in Grant’s head). Sleeping with Merlin in a tent on a bunk, he imagines himself to be really lying in a king-sized bed in some respectable town house. Merlin makes him hallucinate the smells and sounds of London.

* * *

 

When the war is over and they are sent home, England feels somewhat alien to Grant. He is not used to how easy it is to live from day to day without fear of death. The food is better. The beds are softer, the houses warmer. The streets don’t really smell any better but they are home, only home is not home anymore.

It is a month or so before he pays a visit to Jonathan Strange. Jonathan Strange, as he thinks in his head, because that is who Merlin is in London. There is talk of his return and his every slightest action in the papers. He’d understood in the Peninsula that Merlin was Somebody—understood the extent of his powers through their very demonstration—but he had not realized that Jonathan Strange was not merely powerful but fashionable. People who have never met him still like him, still argue in bars over whether he is the greatest magician in England or Norrell is. It’s fun to argue about magic. It’s an impractical thing to argue about, after all, and it hardly matters who’s right—yet it’s fun to be on the side of the dashing hero, and thus the general public loves Jonathan Strange.

Grant imagines Jonathan Strange to be a very dignified man, and so, when Grant goes to meet him, he is. But in some ways he actually seems less dignified than he was in the Peninsula. There he had the dignity of a warrior; here only the dignity of a young gentleman. And when he sees Grant even that relaxes.

“I must introduce you to my wife,” he says, with a warm if slightly awkward smile on his face. Grant finds himself oddly interested in meeting the woman, and when he meets her he is happy to do so. She is as he pictured, and Merlin with her is as he pictured. They are disgustingly domestic and Grant knows he was always right: Merlin is a creature of England, of homely comforts.

Yet Grant is not ashamed to bask in those comforts, even if he should be. What was between him and Merlin he decides to see as an expedience of wartime. Now they will simply be gentleman friends together, and he will let it pass. He likes being friends with Merlin. It is easy and comfortable. It is the easiest and most comfortable thing he has done since coming back from the war.

He makes this decision and with all his heart he wants to stick with it. But the next week, when he goes for a walk with Merlin, just a walk about town to talk a little, he realizes he was not entirely right. Merlin is at home here but he is not at peace. He is more restless than Grant ever saw before.

“Everything seems shallow now,” he says. “The kinds of magic I performed in the Peninsula I could never think of performing here. Norrell…” He seems to bite back words. “I suppose it’s for the best. I shouldn’t raise any more Neapolitans for the dead.”

“Yes, I should think it’s for the best.”

Merlin sighs. “And those damn books. You were right; I do care about them. Norrell won’t let me read half his library and it’s driving me insane. All the petty little things.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I thought I’d never care about them again.”

“The war is over. It is time for petty things.”

“In the Peninsula I could work miracles. Here everything is rote. Dear God, doesn’t it get to you?”

“Of course it does,” Grant says. “It gets to all of us. Still, it is good to be home.”

“I suppose so.”

They eye each other for a minute. They have come to a stop in their walk at a corner in the street. People are passing in herds—there is no question of them doing anything. Yet Grant feels Merlin’s eyes flickering over him. He is more nervous than he was the first time they met.

“You belong to your wife here,” he says quietly.

Jonathan laughs. “Yes. Yes, that is the good thing about being home, I suppose.”

“It is. There are many good things about it.”

“Yes. Only…”

Only he doesn’t feel like he belongs here anymore, Grant knows. But doesn’t know how to say it without feeling ungrateful for the peace, which is after all a good thing. It is just that he no longer knows what to do with it. That is Grant’s fault and Wellington’s fault and the army’s fault. He is not a simple domestic gentleman anymore.

But Grant knows that he is meant to be one, and he offers him reassuring words and tells him it is all natural and will fade. Life will go back to normal. It must. Those petty things will help the transition. There are always smaller battles to fight.

He tells Jonathan that he will see him again soon, and Jonathan says he certainly hopes so. They will visit with each other, as gentlemen with a shared past, like men who were schoolboys together. Memories of the war will fade like childhood, and Jonathan will be a London man again.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I caught Grant/Jonathan feels. War era isn't even that central to show and yet... I guess this is my first JS&MN fic. Huh.


End file.
